


So what am I defending now?

by SoccerSarah01



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Marineford Arc, Mentions of Death, fun stuff :))), just some casual post-marineford character analysis, rated teen for language and some descriptions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27051889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoccerSarah01/pseuds/SoccerSarah01
Summary: (They won, but as the death count rises, as the silence caused by shocked horror starts to break and wailing sobs start to ring out, as the smoke just gets thicker and thicker and thicker, it just feels like they lost.They won, but marines and pirates, good and bad, right and wrong, (not necessarily respectively), alike lie dead, coating the stone with blood and choking the air with horror.They won, but at what cost?)-(Smoker and Tashigi talk after Marineford, and nothing is okay.)
Relationships: Smoker & Tashigi (One Piece)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 47





	So what am I defending now?

It’s quiet at Marineford.

Tashigi carefully picks her way across the battlefield, bodies and crevices alike making a treacherous plane as she makes for the triage tent.

An injured soldier lays slung across her back.

Blood soaks into her already-filthy uniform.

(She can’t hear their breathing.)

She finally makes it over, carefully maneuvering so that the soldier is laid on their back. She gently grabs a battered and bruised wrist, placing two fingers against the artery she knows is there.

(She can’t feel their pulse.)

Someone gently nudges her to the side, and she takes a step back as two medics, looking all sorts of broken and worn down, lean over the prone soldier. Tashigi takes in the whole of their body for the first time, eyes jumping from bruise, to gash, to hole.

(She can’t see their chest moving.)

A familiar hand lands on her shoulder, and she unconsciously follows where it guides her, sitting down heavily when a cement block appears in front of her.

She looks out across the broken remnants of the Marines’ power.

All she can see is smoke.

It’s everywhere, remnants from Fire Fist’s fire sending smoke billowing upwards; pools of magma eating away at stone and producing thick, dark, unnatural smoke; dust and dirt getting kicked up and adding to the pure destruction that encompasses Marineford.

(They won, but as the death count rises, as the silence caused by shocked horror starts to break and wailing sobs start to ring out, as the smoke just gets thicker and thicker and _thicker_ , it just feels like they lost.

They won, but marines and pirates, good and bad, right and wrong, (not necessarily respectively), alike lie dead, coating the stone with blood and choking the air with horror.

They won, but at what cost?)

Tashigi can’t even react as Smoker sits next to her, staring blankly out in front of her as he gingerly settles down, sighing heavily as he struggles to light a cigar.

(Shaking hands make lighting one difficult.)

“How are you feeling?” He asks gruffly, finally succeeding in lighting the cigar.

“Fine, sir,” She replies automatically. It tastes like a lie, though, and the look Smoker sends her makes it very clear he won’t accept that answer.

He shifts his gaze away from her, looking out over the slowly-settling debris, and says, “How are you, really?”

“I..” Tashigi begins, biting at her lip and swallowing around the knot in her throat.

(All she can smell is smoke, is blood, is pure, unadulterated _death_.)

“I’m not fine,” Smoker admits, and she snaps her head over to look at him in shock. He’s glaring at the ground, hands clenched tight enough that she knows he would be bleeding if it weren’t for his devil fruit. Tashigi, belatedly, notices her own hands are numb, and forces herself to unclench them and lay them on the stone beside her.

“This just…this doesn’t seem like it was worth it, sir,” Tashigi finally says, and it’s barely a whisper. She can’t let even a hint of a thought like that get overheard.

(She knows what happens to traitors, after all.)

Smoker sighs again, and it’s a weary, war-torn thing, and she _hates_ it. “Normally, I’d be tearing into you right about now,” he says, slowly, but then slumps, admitting, “But…I can’t help but agree with you.”

“Ten thousand dead. Over fifty thousand wounded, so far,” Tashigi whispers, glancing at the triage tent out of the corners of her eyes before shuddering and looking away. “Over half of our troops are either dead or could die, and for what? The deaths of a few pirates? How is it worth _this_?”

(A wail rings out, heart wrenching and horror-inducing.)

Smoker shakes his head, and it’s only because she knows him as well as she does that she notices the slight tightening of his jaw; the subtle shaking in his hands that betrays his anger.

“That kid was right,” he says gruffly. Tashigi looks over the piles of rock surrounding them, straining to see the shock of pink hair through the smoke.

She can’t find it.

Noticing her searching, Smoker shakes his head, saying, “He was already taken away. He passed out, apparently.”

Tashigi nods understandingly. She’s not surprised. It takes a lot of bravery, a lot of pure courage to stand up to an admiral like that. She admires him. A lot.

(She’s not sure she would have been able to do the same, had she been in his position.

The realization feels cold in her gut.)

She says softly, picking at the hem of her pants, “We owe him a lot.” Smoker nods in agreement. Many more would have been lost had that kid not stood up like that, changing the world.

(A heartbroken cry rings out. Tashigi can barely muster the energy to wince.)

(Too many lives had already been lost.)

“What was all this for?” Tashigi whispers unconsciously, shocking herself with her own words. Smoker, though, doesn’t seem surprised, only bowing his head and sighing yet again.

“Justice, supposedly.”

“This wasn’t justice.” Tashigi surprises herself with her own firmness, but doesn’t take it back even as Smoker side-eyes her. She knows it’s true.

There’s no justice in what was done today.

“No, I suppose it wasn’t,” Smoker says. He leans back, then, arms barely able to hold himself up as he looks to the ash-covered sky.

Tashigi asks hesitantly, “Then what?” Smoker doesn’t answer. Tashigi doesn’t blame him.

Tashigi’s not sure there _is_ an answer to that.

All she knows is today, justice was ignored.

Forgotten.

True justice wouldn’t have led to the deaths of thousands of people; wouldn’t have led to the destruction of families; wouldn’t have led to the breaking of hearts.

(She still can’t get Straw Hat’s devastated cry out of her head.)

Smoker sighs, standing and walking slowly towards where soldiers are still laying, wounded.

Tashigi forces herself to rise, ignoring the flaring pain in her back, her arms, her legs, and follows.

As she lifts those who can’t walk off the ground and helps them to the medics; as she tends to the wounds that she can and comforts those with the wounds that she can’t; as she listens and feels and hears and smells and tastes the horrors of war, one question remains in her mind.

If this isn’t justice, then what are they fighting for?

_What am I defending now?_

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Discord, and it somehow blossomed into a full-out fic, so, yeah.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> ([My Tumblr](https://sarahwritesss.tumblr.com/)!)


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